Indifference: When You Do Everything Right and the World Says Nothing

Not rejection. Rejection has information. This is the silence.

This is a weird one to record.

It’s primarily about indifference.

What happens when you’re doing the work?
You know you’re doing the work, and you see results in yourself.
People close enough to see you acknowledge the change, the shift.

You’re ready to go.
You’re looking to plug back in.
To the world.
To society.
To the economy.

The sad truth is you cannot exist in the United States without a receipt.

You can’t be homeless.
There’s no vacancy and no vagrancy allowed.

It’s a citation.
A misdemeanor.

I had this image come to mind earlier.

I was on a boat. The boat that was my life.
I went through a violent storm and fell off.
Sank lower and lower until I wanted to go lower.
As if an evil part of me was punishing me.

I went to the depths where there was no light.

I was in the abyss.

I became the singularity.

I know what it’s like to have my toes over the edge, looking down into black infinity, ready to take the step.

But I didn’t.

I stuck around.

And I’m ready to go.

It’s as if society and capitalism and the economy are saying,
“Fuck you for fucking up.”

It’s a form of punishment.
It feels like it.
Weirdly.

I know it’s not.
But that feeling when you keep showing up day after day after day and nobody responds in the way that takes you that one next step.

That one breadcrumb on the trail.

---

Let me be clear about something.
Between January and now, my life has changed.

Good things have come into my life through intention and stepping outside my “comfort zone.”

People, places, and things I wouldn’t trade for anything.
They have more value to me than money.

I’ve wept with gratitude to the universe about these things.
They’re very important to me.

And right now they feel incredibly tenuous.

Partly because of my inability to plug into the economy.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

I could build the coolest digital shit this side of planet Earth, and I’m invisible. It’s like I don’t exist.
Yet my stuff is online.

I’m online; therefore, I exist.

Right?!?!

I was one of the first 25 million people on the internet in 1994.
There are billions now. I get it.
And I can’t get a single nibble.

Not one.

It’s as if no tool or technique will work.
As if I’m on some metaphorical blacklist.

I’m doing everything right.
And the universe is not meeting me in that one spot.

This isn’t rejection.

Rejection you can work with.
Rejection has information.

This is indifference.
A silence.
A ghosting.

You build something.
You publish it.
You put yourself out there.
You show up honestly, rawly, completely.

And you get crickets.

...I’ve been doing all the things for years.

And my head is in a good place now.
Not a dark place.

If we’re getting into frequency & energy…
My vibration is way fucking higher.
I don’t get it.

I’m not asking for millions.

I’m asking for enough so I don’t have to think about it.
So it’s not a struggle.
So it’s not nonexistent the way it feels right now.

...there’s a kind of shame coming on me.
The shame of feeling like you’ve been around too long.
You’re the company guest that needs to get the fuck out of the house.
I feel that vibe intensely. And I want to get out.
And I can’t move without money and some way to keep making it show up.

The Narrows, Zion National Park, Utah. 2024

Three years without steady employment.

This May. May 15th, 2023, was when my last gig ended.

I’m exhausted from surviving, not living.

What do you do when you’ve controlled the controllables?
Your effort.
Your attitude.
The energy you’re putting in.

---

Where the focus goes, the energy flows.

And right now my focus has been on getting dollars in my door.

It isn’t happening.

...redesigning & rewriting so many fucking times, you want to give up.

The 80/20 principle comes to mind.
You’ve put in the 80%.

That last 20% doesn’t get you much else.
I feel like I’m at 90%.
And I’m just fucking exhausted.

I feel like I’m in a giant canyon shouting, “Hello…” and I just hear my voice going way off into the distance.

Nothing ever comes back.

Not a fucking sound or a soul.

...I just had a birthday, living in a room inside my family’s home.
My family is supporting me.

That’s Washington Monument-sized level of shame.

And I’ve dealt with so much shame over these past years, processed so many wounds, that if I focus on it, that’s what I’ll be vibing with.

And I’m not going there.

I’m surfing.

I’m picking my waves, watching the sets come in.

I’m riding them and getting back to shore.

But everybody else is walking home with the money.

And people don’t even see me surfing.

…more than anything, I love the hermit quality of my life.
Solitude. Being inside my own world.
Through it all I’ve found sitting still lets me grow faster than ever.
A paradox I never thought possible.

Growing through stillness.

Standing still, yet you’re growing.

Maybe capitalism should take a hint from that one.

---

So what do you do?

You just keep fucking showing up.

Because you don’t have any other choice.

Well… you do.
But it’s a choice no one wants to take.

And I’m not in that place.
My head isn’t there.
I want to be clear about that.

---

Arches National Park, Utah.

I’m just in the canyon. Saying hello.

Hearing my own voice go off into the distance.

And showing up again tomorrow anyway.

Because…

There are no winners when you’re the only one in the room.

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Until next time…
Be well.
Bert 🙏